Tiger
by Frostings
Summary: What do girls know at seventeen? There were dresses and sweetness and suitors. But Jack didn't belong in her world, but he was familiar to her. JackElizabeth.


Tiger

i.

It was first of the strange things that were going to happen to Elizabeth Swann in her young life. One moment she was standing next to the Commodore, listening to what seemed to be—much to her horror—a proposal of marriage.

She was just going to close her eyes and take a deep breath. Some part of her knew this was coming, and although she knew her answer was a resounding _no, _she couldn't find it in her heart to just throw it back so cruelly, so carelessly, in the Commodore's face. She liked him, she truly did. She respected him, she looked up to him, and her father liked him.

There was a sick feeling in her stomach. Oh gods, her father. What would he say if she turned down this proposal? There was many a time she felt guilty with not living up to her father's expectations of being a fine woman, regardless of what the Commodore was saying otherwise. She squeezed her eyes shut, singing quietly to herself, _"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me_." For some reason, this song always calmed her, took her someplace else.

The next moment she found that she _was_ somewhere else altogether. It was not Will, nor the Commodore who was looking at her, but a strange, dark face peering down in a wary, curious sort of way, which mirrored her own look at the stranger. She wondered if she had somehow summoned him with her song. When he reached down for her necklace, she did not move. She let him. He was a pirate, she knew, and for that reason alone he felt familiar to her.

ii.

Sitting here now with him, marooned, abandoned, she wondered if she was, in fact, dreaming or injured in some way when she fell off and hit the water; she'd seen it happen many times before, when people fell and hit their heads too hard. Maybe Jack was just some dream person, she thought with an amused smile, and that was why he always acted so odd.

"You're smiling." He said, making it sound accusing and curious at the same time. "That's never a good sign."

They had spent the first two hours on the island arguing how to get off the island. Or rather, how she thought they could get off and how he thought they couldn't. She knew Jack wasn't an optimistic sort of person, but during the argument she could detect quite a genuine whiff of anger and frustration off of him. He was angry she had found him out; frustrated he didn't have a way out when all the books and rumors about him _promised _that he _always knew how._

She sneaked a look at him while as he sat beside her, drinking rum and just staring over the ocean. No theatrics, no boasts, just him sitting down, drinking rum.

As he lifted his bottle to his lips, his eyes slid towards her. He caught her looking. She looked hastily away, but he didn't seem to mind. "Rum, love?" he offered.

"No, thank you." She said, slightly embarrassed, trying not to show it.

She didn't have to look to know that he shrugged his shoulders in that exaggeratedly offhanded way. "Suit yourself, then. Too drunk to go climb up and get coconuts. Unless, you want me to--" he stood up awkwardly, before falling square on his bum again.

"No, _thank you._" She repeated, loudly. The last thing she wanted was Jack dying by breaking his spine on account of coconuts.

"Ah, better have some rum, then." He handed her a bottle, with a look that brooked no refusal. She took it, and after a few moments' consideration, took an experimental swallow. The effect was immediate: Her throat was on fire, and she ended up coughing everything else out. It tasted like bile! She looked at him with watery eyes as he leaned over and heartily clapped her on the back.

"Good, eh?" he said, grinning wickedly, his gold teeth glinting in the sunset. She wiped the rest of it off her mouth, glaring at him. She wanted to shout at him and be angry, but she knew that was exactly what he expected.

"You're smiling." She took the bottle back, defiantly, and took another swig. Her eyes watered but she held the drink down. She blinked at him through her watery eyes. "That's not a good sign."

He laughed. She could see her little defiance impressed him. "No. It is definitely not a good sign."

iii.

She was seventeen years old. What do girls her age knew at seventeen? There were dresses and sweetness and suitors. Even marriage. She had that with Will.

But she also had books on pirates, and maps, and promises of treasure and adventure at a younger age. She had it a long time ago, longer than sweetness, lace and true love. She had escaped in it, lost herself into it.

Perhaps she knew Jack longer than she knew Will. He smelled like danger, and that was a familiar scent to her. His words were tangy, and bitter to the taste, because adventure could never taste like the comfort of candied almonds.

"Welcome to the Caribbean, love." He said softly, eyes heavy from the rum, but she knew better. He was watching her, a tiger between the shadows and the trees. She knows he thinks she is the same.

It's an appropriate greeting. She's been gone too long. She smiles at him, and they both know, that as of this moment, it is over and done with. It is a done deal.

Welcome to the Caribbean, indeed.


End file.
